The preliminary investigative report conducted by the Ad-hoc Committee investigating the operations and activities of Real Estate Developers in Abuja showed that Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) loses N800 billion annually.
Chairman of the House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee, Hon Blessing Onuh, disclosed this in Abuja at the opening of a two-day workshop on the operations of real estate developers in the FCT.
She said: “Take, for example, a house or land is sold for N500 million, the lawyer gets his legal fees, the agent gets his brokerage fee, the bank gets its transaction charges and the government gets nothing if the transaction is not presented for registration. And this kind of transaction goes on in volumes every day unregulated, leaving the government with the perennial struggles of meeting up its responsibility of providing decent welfare for its staff and providing modern amenities to its people.
“Many of these transactions are done in cash making the industry a safe haven for money laundering and illicit financial flows.”
She said the committee also hopes to discuss the consumer protection laws as it relates to the real estate industry.
Onuh said: “This is necessitated from the hundreds of petitions submitted to this committee by teeming members of the public who have been shortchanged by dubious developers operating freely in the industry. A pathetic case is the case of the petroleum and natural gas senior staff association of Nigeria which paid over N4.2 billion to a developer since 2019 and is yet to get even one house delivered to its staff. And thousands of similar cases.
She said in the short time the committee had carried out its mandate, it found out that the level of impunity by developers across the sector is unprecedented.
She said this is obviously not possible without the collaboration of corrupt public officers.
“The committee in different oversight inspections noted with great concern many estates at different levels of completion, some 100 per cent completed and occupied but developed without building approvals or without proper titles.
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“We noticed some estates developed on green areas and lands reserved for public institutions like schools. Some developers invade plots without documents demarcate and sell to unsuspecting members of the public and display a high sense of impunity emboldened by the belief that they are friends of the authority and nothing can happen to them,” Onuh said.
She assured the committee would stop at nothing to check the nefarious activities of estate developers in the FCT and the country.
In his keynote address, the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Ahmed Wase, lauded the committee for its effort, saying corruption is a monster that must be tackled to address unwholesome practices by real estate developers.
He urged the Ad-hoc committee not to compromise on its mandate and do its best to ensure that no Nigerian is taken for granted or short-changed in the shortest possible time.
He also urged developers who are involved in such unwholesome practices to desist.
“Developers should stop this. People would go to the bank, take loans and at the end of the day, nothing to show. I think it is not right. We should be guided by our conscience those who are doing that. I charge all those involved to have a change of heart and do the right thing,” Hon. Wase urged.
On his part, FCT Minister, Muhammad Bello, said access to decent accommodation is considered a fundamental human right and the government is committed to this.
He said the FCT introduced a mass housing scheme to be driven by the private sector after it became apparent that government alone could not possibly meet the needs of the citizenry.
He said while this policy enabled many to own decent accommodation, it also came with its own challenges.
He however said private sector involvement is the best way to provide housing for the people.
“I still want to reiterate that the way to is through the private sector involvement in partnership with the public sector under strong regulation. I believe working together with the committee and recommendations you are going to proffer, it is still not too late to recover lost ground.
“We have no option but to work together under the right laws and regulations. Despite all this, PPP is still the most viable option available to us in meeting housing, but under strict regulations that would protect the estate investor, government and off-takers as well as those financing the projects along the entire value chain,” he said.
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